Wisconsin Russia Project

The Wisconsin Russia Project is an exciting new initiative, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by CREECA. The project builds on the already robust social science research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and brings together an array of UW-Madison academic departments, faculty, and scholars with social scientists from the Russian Federation. It is a cooperative effort to generate expanded scholarly knowledge of Russia’s economy, society, politics, culture, and institutions, train new generations of social scientists who focus on Russia, and foster close collaborations and networks between US- and Russia-based social scientists.

Opportunities

Visiting Graduate Student Fellowships

The Wisconsin Russia Project is supporting four pre-doctoral scholars from the Russian Federation. Under the guidance of UW-Madison faculty, they will conduct dissertation research for one semester in Madison. Congratulations to the following fellows who will arrive to Madison during the 2017-2018 academic year!

Aldar Chirninov will complete his fellowship during the fall 2017 semester and perform research toward a comparative legal study of Russia and the United States.

Kristina Butaeva will arrive for the spring 2018 semester at UW-Madison and will continue research on income inequality in Russia.

Dmitri Trifonov will be a graduate fellow during the spring 2018 semester. His dissertation research focuses on the politicization of the Russian business environment.

Mariia Ukhvatova will arrive in Madison during the spring 2018 semester to perform research toward her dissertation on religion’s influence on electoral behavior in Russia.

Summer Research Awards for Graduate Students

The Wisconsin Russia Project provides summer research grants of up to $4000 to current UW-Madison social science doctoral students for travel to Russia to conduct field research. Congratulations to Political Science PhD candidate Hannah Chapman who received a WRP grant to conduct field research in Russia in 2017. More grants will be available for summer 2018. The summer 2018 competition will open in November 2017 with a deadline in February 2018. More information coming soon.

Graduate Research Assistantships

Congratulations to the following graduate students who were awarded research assistantships toward completing their doctoral programs in the social sciences at UW-Madison. Awardees are working on research projects related to Russia with current UW-Madison faculty.

2016-2017

Hanna Chapman—current graduate student in the UW Department of Political Science

Dmitri Kofanov—current graduate student in the UW Department of Political Science

2017-2018

Alexander Straka—second-year UW law student in the University of Wisconsin Law School

Chelsea Zielka—second-year UW law student in the University of Wisconsin Law School

Post-doctoral Research Fellowships

Congratulations to the following fellows who will arrive to Madison during the 2017-2018 academic year! They will work with UW social science faculty members and be exposed to extensive networks of scholars in their fields of research.

Aleksandr Kondakov is currently an assistant professor at European University at Saint Petersburg and a researcher at the Center for Independent Research in Saint Petersburg. He will arrive to Madison in spring 2018 and will continue his work on a project that explores the experience of law by the LGBT community in Russia.

Aleksandra Lukina recently received her PhD from Saint Petersburg State University. She will be a fellow at UW-Madison in both fall 2017 and summer 2018. Her scholarship addresses Russian income distribution dynamics and economic growth.

Megan Metzger recently received her PhD from New York University. She will be a fellow at UW-Madison for the academic year, beginning in fall 2017, and her research investigates the impact of new technologies on Russian state political strategies.

Dmitriy Vorobyev is currently an assistant professor and senior researcher at Ural Federal University in Ekaterinburg, Russia. He will also arrive to Madison for the academic year in fall 2017. His research looks at the political economy of governance in Russian and/or electoral fraud.

Short-term Visiting Researcher Awards

Three grants will be awarded to scholars from the Russian Federation for short-term research visits (up to 30 days) to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The award will support collaboration between the visiting scholars and UW faculty for joint research projects. Applications are received on a rolling basis and must be accompanied by a letter of support from a UW-Madison faculty member. Please email russiaproject@creeca.wisc.edu for more information.

Faculty Research Awards

Four research grants of $5000 will be awarded to UW-Madison faculty traveling to Russia or Russian scholars traveling to UW-Madison. The awards are meant to develop collaboration between scholars, support joint research proposals, and finance research for co-authored articles in scholarly journals. Application information is forthcoming.

Welcoming Paul Dower to UW-Madison!

With funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the continued financial support of the university, Paul Dower has joined the faculty in the UW-Madison Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Assistant Professor Dower is an economist specializing in Russia.

Faculty Research Awards

Four research grants of $5000 will be awarded to UW-Madison faculty traveling to Russia or Russian scholars traveling to UW-Madison. The awards are meant to develop collaboration between scholars, support joint research proposals, and finance research for co-authored articles in scholarly journals. Application information is forthcoming.

UW-Madison will host a two-day conference on contemporary Russia in July 2018. The conference will bring together scholars in Russian social sciences, including graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and UW-Madison faculty who both organized and received support from the project. The conference will reinforce the notion of cross-national collaboration supported by the Wisconsin Russia Project and encourage the ongoing cultivation of a broader network of like-minded scholars. Dates and times will be announced in the near future.